Ubuntu May Move To Rolling Releases 246
formfeed writes "The register claims that 'Ubuntu is moving away from its established six-month-cycle and potentially to a future where software updates land on a daily basis.'
While this sounds like a sudden change, it is apparently more of a long-term thought. The Register quotes Shuttleworth:
'"Today we have a six-month release cycle," Shuttleworth said. "In an internet-oriented world, we need to be able to release something every day. That's an area we will put a lot of work into in the next five years. The small steps we are putting in to the Software Center today, they will go further and faster than people might have envisioned in the past."' But given that many of Shuttleworth's thoughts became decisions later on, it might be interesting to see, where this one leads. Interestingly enough, five years is about the time when Ubuntu will run out of letters."
that's really good! (Score:2, Interesting)
Instability through Obscurity (Score:3, Interesting)
The biggest problem I've had with Arch is that changes are only tested on a few common packages before being sent out. If you use an obscure package routinely, it might not be tested decently with any given change, especially to libraries.
Once a change breaks something, you're left trying to install multiple versions, locking versions, modifying the source, or other such deep magic. Very quickly, the whole system gets to be too big a hassle to deal with.
Re:Obvious problem is obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
That happened to me.
ON DEBIAN STABLE
Seriously, running Debian Stable happily for months. They release a break for my Firewire, obviously a security update because it's STABLE, then they release a break for my sound, I didn't feel like futzing with drivers and stuff, that's why I stayed on stable. I went to Kubuntu. 8 months later I figured I would try Debian again. Still broke. I don't know what they were thinking, but stable isn't.
Ubuntu SID? (Score:1, Interesting)
This was Debian's solution, still in development. No long cycles and it's great for the people who love the bleeding edge.
Re:Instability through Obscurity (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Instability through Obscurity (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe the answer is something akin to restore points in Windows, noting prior to an upgrade what system files will be overwritten, backing them up (and the dpkg database) and then installing the update. If there is a screwup, then you can rollback to some point in the past.
Re:Instability through Obscurity (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Obvious problem is obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
My results were like yours. That's why I finally switched to stable from testing. Got tired of working on my system instead of using my system.
Isn't Linux supposed to be modular? (Score:1, Interesting)
When will they stop pretending that apps are part of an operating system? Ubuntu confuses an OS with a kitchen-sink app. Desktop backgrounds, specific customized version of a specific browser, instant messaging, graphics editor -- none of these belong in an OS. None of these should be part of (depend on) an OS upgrade. An OS should provide a stable basis for all versions of all programs to run. If they could achieve that, there would be no need for frequent updates, except for the adventurous.
Debian CUT (Score:5, Interesting)
Debian CUT == Constantly Usable Testing.
A recently started project in Debian with a similar goal of a rolling release (along with an idea of installable snapshots).
http://cut.debian.net/ [debian.net]
http://lwn.net/Articles/406301/ [lwn.net]
Re:Obvious problem is obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, Ubuntu 9.x had some issues with ATI drivers. (Updated Xorg, and the ATI binary driver didn't work.)
Re:Obvious problem is obvious (Score:4, Interesting)
If there was a bug, it would have been fixed.
Re:Instability through Obscurity (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, that's easy. I don't remember the directory path right now (I'm at work), but maybe it's something like /var/cache/pacman/somethingorother, all the old package files are right there. I've had to go back there a couple times, but that's about the extent of the headaches I've ever had.